3
3
From Easter to Advent
3
The Easter celebration has barely begun and here I’m talking about Advent. That’s because there’s big changes on the way, and you need time to prepare.
First, we will have a Children’s Christmas Pageant Sunday, December 18th time to be announced. This will be directed by our organist, Kristin Machamer. Practice for this event will be held on Sundays beginning November 13th. These will be held either during Sunday School, after Divine Service, or both. There will be no practice after service on December 11th as that will be Christmas caroling by bus.
Why am I telling you all this now, 7 months in advance? I need you to put caroling and pageant on your calendar and if possible plan around them. If we will be practicing after service, I will need a crew of volunteers to provide simple luncheon fare for the kids and parents right quick after Divine Service. Finally, while we are not expecting lavish costumes or sets, there will be some and that too has to be planned for and done in advance.
The second big change is actually the raison d'être for the first. For 30 plus years I have struggled to make Advent a penitential season. This is the way we reinforce in our kids that our holy day Christmas is not the same as The Holidays or Season’s Greetings. Don’t misunderstand; I want our kids to have both. I just don’t want them putting the world’s Santa in my manger scene or think they are Christianizing the secular season by saying “Merry Christmas” at check-out or by wearing a pin saying “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Ours true; not theirs.
When teaching young children you have to be over the top to some extent. Their books show BIG trucks, BIG people; bright COLORS. I want to do this for them in Advent. It will be a somber time in the Lord’s House. We won’t decorate for Christmas. No tree save perhaps for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and maybe the Tree of Life, but definitely no Christmas Tree. We will of course have the wreath, perhaps in a more prominent position. But no door wreaths, no ribbons, no hanging ornaments, and no poinsettias.
I envision as part of the program the children will decorate our sanctuary for Christmas. The pageant will be a program, not a Divine Service, but it will be in service of teaching our children to sing and to memorize the Christmas account from Luke 2.
The third change really has nothing to do with the first two, and you’re looking at it. When I created the Te Deum it was to bring the news from various groups in the congregation to the rest of the congregation. That hasn’t ever happened.
I have been the author for 90% of what you have read here. Often I have reproduced what I have written in my blogs. Sometimes I have published articles from other Confessional Lutheran pastors or even secular sources. To say the congregation was nonplused by these would be an understatement. Perhaps narcoleptic would be more accurate.
I said the later on purpose to illustrate. I have done in these newsletters what I have only done a handful of times in sermons. Said or repeated something intending to get a rise from you. Nothing. Nada. Crickets.
So no more lengthy newsletters. Just a one page article by me and your calendars on the back. If you want to know more of what I think, read my blog at our website.
I started that blog in 2007 at the urging of a former member and a present one. The present one was the tipping point. He said, ‘You’re one of the few persons in the Missouri Synod that I want to know what he thinks.”
Personally, I don’t think you should read blogs at all, mine included. But if you’re going to read them, you should read your pastors’. The one divinely appointed for you to hear in this time and place.
3
April 2016
1 / 2
ß------ / PASTOR / ON
3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
VACA- / TION / ------> / 7:15 pm
Romans
10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16
Adult Class
NOON / 5pm Confirmation / 7:15 pm
Romans
17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23
Adult Class
NOON / 5pm Confirmation / 7:15 pm
Romans
24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30
Adult Class
NOON / ß------ / ACELC
Conference / ------>
May 2016
SUN / MON / TUE / WED / THURS / FRI / SAT1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7
Confirmation
Dinner
No Adult Class / 7:15 pm
Romans
8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14
Adult Class
NOON / 7:15 pm
Romans
15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21
Adult Class
NOON / 7:15 pm
Romans
22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28
NO ADULT CLASS
ß------/ COUPLES’ / TRIP TO / THE COAST / ------>
29 / 30 / 31
Adult Class
NOON
3